A chess competition between humans and robots was held in Dubai on Sunday. The artificial intelligence-powered machine was so advanced that it beat one of the best chess players in the UAE, Omar Noaman Al Ali.
The game was organised at Area 2071, Emirates Towers, where visitors also got to play basketball against a robot.
The head of Area 2071, Maha Almezaina, told Khaleej Times that the games were set up to create a link between humans and machines.
"As part of Area 2071, we do have this initiative which is human versus machines, where we allow people to interact with artificial intelligence (AI) and robots in two different games - chess and basketball. I think the main idea behind this was to create some kind of empathy between humans and robots and show them that they're not too different from each other and they complement one another," Almezaina said.
"We wanted people to have a first-hand experience of that from Area 2071. Initially, we wanted to dedicate this initiative to our partners and the startups that are working here. This created a buzz and a lot of people wanted to be a part of it. We opened the registration and we initially had 38 people who had signed up for this, but it went up to 125 individuals."
{"preview_thumbnail":"https://cdn.flowplayer.com/6684a05f-6468-4ecd-87d5-a748773282a3/i/v-i-0…","video_id":"06e8fae2-3f91-4a6d-96d1-342e5bb5261e","player_id":"","provider":"flowplayer","video":"Suspected Bomb Blast Leaves 13 Injured in France"}
Games' mechanics
The chess game had three different rounds, and one had to win in each round in order to qualify for the next level.
First, humans played with other humans. Next, the winner competed with an AI machine that was controlled by an algorithm. Finally, if the human won this round, they would play against the Kuka arm - the AI-based robot that is yet to be defeated by a human being.
"The Kuka arm has around 30,000 chess games in its system that has already been utilised, making it very complex. It has reached 2,200 as a grandmaster in a chess game. We want people to participate and see it as a challenge. Hopefully, in the future, it'll be even bigger. You have to be a grandmaster to beat the Kuka. A lot of people are coming here, super hyped to see if they can beat it. Over here, we have one of the best chess players who hasn't beat the robot yet and, this time, he might be able to do it," Almezaina said.
Al Ali told Khaleej Times that he hopes to beat it soon, however, it might be "almost impossible" to do so. "The programme is very strong and it's very difficult to beat it. He won all of the games. The engine isn't that strong, though. There are stronger ones out there. There's something called the 'chess programme' and 'engine'. The engine is the machine that is calculating the move.
"This time, it'll be very difficult to defeat it, I think it's impossible," he said.
"You can't only care about machines, though. As Garry Kasparov, the best player of chess, said 'without the feeling of human, you cannot do it'. The feeling and emotion of humans are very important, so the machine and human can work together."
Sunday was the last day that humans-versus-machine games could be played at Area 2071.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
